Why The Black Community Can't Talk About Marriage

August 30, 2009|By Linda Malone-Colon

Ask yourself: When is the last time you heard a public leader talk about the crisis in marriage and family and why it is urgent that as a country we give our attention to this crisis and its consequences? The answer is probably never or rarely.

What is being proposed by these leaders to address the dramatic increases in children born out of wedlock (72 percent for African-Americans), divorce, cohabitation, those who never marry and the decline in marital quality?

What are these leaders saying in response to the growing scientific evidence that the breakdown in marriage and family relationships impacts the mental and physical health, educational attainment and delinquent behavior of our children? What about the evidence that this weakening of family relationships is related to increased poverty and to a battery of social and health-related problems for adults? Why are so many remaining silent on this issue, and why do some leaders reprimand those who have the insight and courage to speak up?

There are urgent calls to action to address the economic, health care, educational and environmental crises, as there should be, but no national calls to action to address marriages and families. Why not a marriage and family stimulus package?

As I see it, we won't talk about the crisis in black marriages because of:

* The unfortunate politicization of marriage. Marriage-strengthening efforts have been associated with a conservative political agenda. Also, conversations about marriage in the public square are often diverted to or focused on same-sex marriage. While this is an important issue in its own right, the urgency of the black marriage crisis and the 72 percent of black children who are born out of wedlock demands our unqualified and focused attention.

* Public leaders have limited paradigms for black uplift. While black public leaders have rightly championed issues of economic and social injustice, we have too often neglected the importance within the black community of the health of our marriages and families. After all, research is clear and unequivocal, that as the family fails, issues with poverty, education, health and crime increase. Which comes first, poverty or failed marriages/failure of marriage to form? The question can be argued both ways, but in the final analysis, solutions to overcome poverty and strengthen marriage and family must both be aggressively pursued. We need champions for healthy marriages and families in the black community to be received as teammates and partners in the broader movement for black uplift.

* Concerns about airing our dirty laundry in public. Yet the decline of marriage and family among African-Americans (and all Americans for that matter) is on public display and obvious. To act as if it is not or that admitting the obvious to those outside the race would somehow do harm to blacks is acting irrationally and irresponsibly.

* The concern that efforts to strengthen black marriages devalue single-parent and extended family households. This is due in part to the propensity in the past of some to define as deficient and unacceptable legitimate and functional aspects of African-American family life. This resistance also stems from concerns about stigmatizing large segments of the black community (particularly single parents) and devaluing their adaptive strategies and those of their extended families. However, noting the value of married family homes does not deny the value or the integrity of a variety of family forms.

* The concern that marriage-strengthening efforts give blacks false hope. There is an implicit suggestion by some that to inspire African-Americans (particularly low-income women) to have healthy marriages gives them hope that they can achieve something that is likely to be unattainable. After all, there simply aren't enough African-American men available to marry. Fewer available men does present a major but surmountable challenge and demonstrates the need for black women to consider other options (including marrying outside of the race).

* The personal relationship challenges and failures and associated pain, guilt and anger experienced by many Americans (including public leaders). These experiences cause many leaders to feel incapable of (or less credible in) identifying solutions and reluctant to approach a topic that requires personal reflection and self-honesty to be addressed adequately. In fact, our greatest solutions will be birthed from those who have experienced and overcome significant relationship challenges and failures.

The urgency of the black marriage and family crisis requires that our public leaders speak up and act to strengthen them. Americans must hold these leaders and themselves accountable. We can no longer allow silence on this issue.

Malone-Colon will be executive director of the National Center on African American Marriages and Parenting at HU, which will be launched at the Hampton University National Summit on Marriage, Parenting and Families on Sept. 29-30.